Water Treatment Plant
The Wastewater Treatment Facility is staffed with three operators and one chief operator who operate the plant seven days a week, 52 weeks each year. Three employees have their class A wastewater operator certification. These employees include Ben Riles, Charles Halterman and Doug Farrow. They are available after hours for emergency problems at the Wastewater Treatment Facility as well as at the lift stations.
Employees must maintain an awareness of all pertinent regulations that apply to the City’s wastewater operation, maintain a safe working environment, and assure that all aspects of the wastewater system are operational to allow for optimum treatment of all wastewater received. I applaud their dedication and professionalism in the daily execution of their duties.
| • | Monitor equipment and processes at the Wastewater Treatment Facility to assure proper operation and compliance with all related regulations. |
| • | Maintain all pumps and equipment at lift stations, including daily checks of each of the thirteen lift stations. |
| • | Sample various points of the process including combined sewer overflows and sanitary sewer overflows and report bypasses to Missouri Department of Natural Resources. |
| • | Land applied biosolids to City farm in cooperation with tenant farmer needs. |
| • | Maintain building and grounds. |
| • | Troubleshoot problems in treatment system and processes. |
| • | A time-consuming part of the treatment operators’ job is ongoing housekeeping/cleaning of tanks, machinery, lagoons, etc. to minimize wear on equipment and reduce odors. |
The Wastewater Treatment Facility treated 980 million gallons of wastewater in 2008. This is an average of 2,687,000 gallons per day. The Wastewater Facility continues to meet or exceed all effluent standards and limits. In addition, combined sewer overflows totaled 200 million gallons during 176 events from the Rollins Street Combined Sewer Overflow and the Seven Bridges Road Combined Sewer Overflow. There were 47 overflow events discharging an unknown amount from the Holman Road Combined Sewer Overflow and the Taylor Street Swirl Concentrator.
Combined sewers are sewers that combine storm water runoff with sanitary sewage in one common pipe. Combined sewer overflows occur during wet weather when sewers cannot transport all the water that is received to the Wastewater Treatment Facility. Relief points have been built into the combined system and these points are monitored for discharge during wet weather. There are currently four locations in our system where this occurs on a regular basis. They are: the lagoon on East Rollins Street, the lagoon on Seven Bridges Road, the swirl concentrator on Taylor Street near St. Mary’s Cemetery, Holman Road near the back of the Moberly Area Community College Athletic Complex. The City reports bypasses for every overflow event, and monitors water quality that is being sent to the receiving stream. Sanitary sewer overflows occur during dry weather when a sewer line is plugged and sewage is discharged to the surrounding areas, usually from a manhole or broken pipe.
There were no violations of our NPDES discharge permit at the Wastewater Treatment Facility in calendar year 2008. We do experience periodic exceedences at the CSO outfalls, but this number is diminishing.
Employees land applied 2,664,720 gallons of bio-solids to the Wastewater Farm. This amounted to 1,332.4 dry tons.
Employees performed 12,282 laboratory tests at the Wastewater Plant including tests in the collection system for reporting of combined sewer overflows, sanitary sewer overflows and process effectiveness evaluation and discharge monitoring reporting.
Staff has signed an antidegradation statement with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. A public meeting has been held to allow the public to comment on disinfection options. Preliminary plans call for UV disinfection as opposed to chlorine or ozone.